Blogs from Shark Bay, Western Australia, Australia, Oceania

Sunday 6th April - arrived in good time at Adelaide airport ready to fly to Perth. Somewhat surprised to find that airport clocks were wrong!!!! Our watches said 11.45, airport clocks saying10.15. Tony checked with airport staff - Bugger - Clocks had changed overnight and we had missed a time zone change somewhere! They were a bit amused when Tony asked if it was April yet! Still nice to be early for a change with time on our hands! Very bumpy flight with lots of turbulence and with so many clouds we couldn't see the Nullabor Plain below us. At Perth we were picked up by our courier, Sam, a really nice guy from Sicily who couldn't stand the heat! He had damaged his knee at a Lionel Ritchie concert some time before and was now ... read more

Mein Frühstück hab ich heute in der offenen Küche am Campingplatz eingenommen. Heute Morgen hatte es im Auto knapp 6 Grad. Es wird gottseidank wärmer, je weiter ich nach Norden komme ;-) Um 0815 Uhr bin ich losgefahren und hab mir einen Espresso im Black Rock Café gegönnt. Danach bin ich im Kalbarri NP noch ein wenig herumspaziert – unter anderem zum Nature’s Window, einem großen Loch im Felsen, durch das man wie durch ein Fenster durchsehen kann. Es waren dort allerdings sehr viele Menschen unterwegs – noch sind Schulferien hier. Das Autofahren hier ist ein zweischneidiges Schwert: einerseits sind die Straßen recht gut, und das Tempolimit beträgt 110 km/h. Andererseits sind die Distanzen zwischen den einzelnen Siedlungen riesig. Ich fahre zwischen 100 und 200 Kilometern, bevor ich wieder Zeichen von Zivilisation sehe. Dazwischen nur Landschaft ... read more

We took a one hour and 45 minute flight from Perth to Shark Bay on Saturday. We stayed at an eco resort called Monkey Mia. I have been really looking forward to this, as it has a bay where they have been studying and interacting with dolphins for around 40 years. Every morning some dolphins will come in to be fed, it starts at 8am, and there are 5 female dolphins who are fed, but they bring with them their calves and friends! It is a very strict program so that they are not made dependant, they only get 500 grams of fish up to 3 times in a morning and they need 10 kilos a day so they still have to go hunt. This was introduced when they realised that one female, Nicki, was losing ... read more

Denham and Monkey Mia (Shark Bay) Saturday morning we did the 20k drive over to Monkey Mia. What a beautiful little bay that is. We got there too late for dolphin feeding but we did see them frolicking about in the most amazing clear blue water. Had a coffee in the café then headed back to Denham. I decided to make my mango cheese cake that afternoon. I got the recipe from the Zebra café in Kununurra but I altered mine a little by using Ginger nut biscuits in the base instead of the Nice biscuits that they suggested. The Ginger nut base worked really well - the ginger complimented the mango. I will put the recipe on the blog for all you foodies - it was really nice. We booked ... read more

Reached the small town of Denham by nightfall, fuelled up some petrol at the local service station, we got some freebies in the form of pies and pasties from the owners, people in Denham seemed quite nice to backpackers. Rather windy on the beach, check out the sea gulls in the pictures. Shell beach is 50km south of Denham, entire beach is made up of billions of shells, hence the beach is completely white and does glare in the sun. Really beautiful beach, should have stayed there for abit longer.... read more